WHY WE CALL IT CANNABIS???????

Why Do We Call It Cannabis ?Cannabis Hemp has a rich legacy spanning thousands of years of close association with humankind. Carl Sagan postulated that it was the first cultivated plant, some 12,000 years ago. As “Ma Hemp” in Ancient China, circa 2400 BC, Cannabis was known as “one of the Superior Elixirs of Immortality“.

The Assyrians burned “qunubu” as incense “because it was pleasing to the Gods”. The Scythians, world renowned artisans, first called it Cannabis and valued its flowers, seeds and fiber, even lending their name to the scythe.

In the land of Cannan, for the Ancient Hebrews’, “Kaneh bosm” (mistranslated in the Bible as Calamus) was incense and anointing oil. Many researchers say that, as cannabis was sacred to the whole Near East, from the Zoroastors to India’s Ganges, certainly Jesus the Essene must have been familiar with this most precious of “spices”.

So when Carl Linnaeus gave it a Latin title, Cannabis sativa (sativa means satisfying many uses), this plant was woven intricately throughout the tapestry of human cultures.

In the modern era, canvas sails (the word canvas is derived from Cannabis), hemp ropes and oakum made seafaring possible. Hemp oil lit the darkness and nourished people and livestock. Hemp farmers grew medicine (Cannabis tinctures were the most prescribed medication of the early 18th century). Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin even smuggled hemp seeds from France, as Britian forbade the colonies from having their own hemp supply, and thereby a navy.

When William Randolph Hearst, the father of yellow journalism, unleashed his “marijuana, weed from hell” stories – feeding racist fears, he chose an obscure Mexican slang term (Canano is Spanish for Cannabis) that few people realized was Cannabis Hemp. ( Hearst pioneered using tree cellulose for paper, which turned yellow and brittle from the chemicals.)